Notebook; Wanted by Major League Managers: A Stronger Corps of Starting Pitchers

By MURRAY CHASS

Published: June 16, 1991

For the first two months of the 1977 season, the Yankees had eight pitchers on their staff. Then they added one and operated with nine until they called up two minor league pitchers in September. In today's pitching world, that staff would be anachronistic.

Today, teams carry as many as 12 pitchers and certainly no fewer than 10, unlike the earlier years of the designated hitter when many American League teams had a nine-man corps and sometimes eight.

Rosters change from day to day. but entering the weekend, the Yankees, Detroit and Milwaukee each had 12 pitchers, 15 teams had 11 and the other 8 had 10.

The increase in job opportunities for pitchers is a direct result of the decrease in talent among pitchers.

"I carried nine quite a bit, especially the first five weeks or so," Sparky Anderson, the Detroit manager, said, recalling times of greater talent.

"That was usually enough. Some even carried eight. But you have to have 10 or more nowadays. You don't have enough top guys who can give you the innings. Now it's gotten so that if you get six innings out of them that's a lot. You don't have enough Clemenses and Martinezes around. We don't have enough quality pitchers."

"The way the game is today, the bullpen is dictated by the starting pitching," Merrill said. "If you have five quality starters, your bullpen isn't going to get as much work. The fifth and sixth relievers are going to be sitting around. But the biggest need in baseball today is starting pitching.

"We've had some problems with our starting pitching from time to time where we had to go to the bullpen. As good as the bullpen has been, if you continually go to them in the third or fourth inning, come August and September, you're not going to have them. We have 12 pitchers right now out of necessity. I don't think it's something we have to do for a prolonged period of time. We have some questions. As soon as they are answered, we'll decide if we go with 12 or 11."

The Oakland Athletics seem to make such decisions almost from series to series.

"Our attitude is we treat every series like it's the most important of the year," Manager Tony La Russa said. "We don't like to go into a series at a disadvantage. You can't literally adjust your roster every series, but there are adjustments you can make every 10 days or two weeks. Situations change."

The Athletics made Todd Burns their 11th pitcher Friday night when they removed him from the disabled list, where he had been for two months. They had dropped to 10 pitchers earlier last week when they sent John Briscoe, a rookie, to the minors and brought up Doug Jennings, an outfielder.

"We felt we could use the extra player because a couple guys were banged up," La Russa explained. "But we wanted to go with 11 now because we have 10 games without an off day. Monday Curt Young is eligible to come off the list and will be put on the roster. The question is do we stay with 11 or go to 12. The answer will come this weekend. How many pitchers do we need to use? If our starters give us innings, we'll stay with 11." Setting the Trend

The Athletics were one of the first teams to use 12 pitchers, growing to that number last year.

"There were some questions when we started this season with 12," La Russa said, "but I see that some other clubs have 12 now."

The way La Russa views the matter, the larger staff protects both the starters and the relievers, as well as the team generally.

"Suppose it's 10-4 and the bullpen is beat up," he said. "You leave the starter in longer and he might get hurt. You want to use your relievers in a way that can keep them sharp and healthy.

"Let's say in today's game, you use three relievers. Tomorrow suppose you have a chance to win; it would be a shame to lose the game because the relievers are unavailable. Or you push relievers into the game and risk hurting them. If you have seven relievers, you can pitch three and still have four for tomorrow. The key is how many innings the starters are giving you. If they're getting into the seventh and eighth, a seven-man bullpen is too many."

Not every team has the Athletics' luxury of having position players who never have to be removed for a pinch-hitter.

"I don't have to hit for seven guys," La Russa said. "I don't need a bench where I have to be able to make four, five moves to win the game."

As if it weren't enough that starting pitchers get themselves knocked out of games, creating the need for more pitchers on a staff, some teams have pitch counts that determine when a starter should be removed, no matter how he's pitching.

"All our pitchers are on pitch counts," Lou Piniella, the Cincinnati manager, said. "The most any starter has thrown this year is 120. Most of the time I would say 100 pitches is a pretty round number. We do it to keep them healthy and keep them pitching."

Piniella, who played for the Yankees when they won with small staffs, noted that starters pitch fewer complete games now than they did in the 1970's.

"That's one reason clubs carry more pitchers," he said.

Of course, one of the reasons for fewer complete games is that managers like Piniella take starters out after so many pitches; the Reds, for example, have only two complete games in 59.

The decline in complete games has been dramatic. In 1977, 52 percent of American League games and 33 percent of National League games were complete efforts. By last season, those ratios had plummeted to 20 percent and 21 percent. This season American League starters have completed 18 percent of their games and National League starters 15 percent. Low on Runs in Cleveland

The Cleveland Indians scored two or fewer runs in 11 of their 12 games before last night's game (none in the last three). In their last 16 games, they scored a total of 34 runs, one less than they scored in two consecutive games against Oakland the first week of May.

The Indians have scored two or fewer runs in more than half of their games, 32 times in 58 games. The other American League teams have scored so few runs an average of 17 times, with the Chicago White Sox closest to the Indians' total with 24.

During the Indians' recent famine, Charles Nagy (2 in 22 2/3), Greg Swindell (2 in 19) and Tom Candiotti (3 in 16 1/3) allowed 7 earned runs in 58 innings for a 1.09 earned run average, but the team emerged from those games with a 2-5 record. Minor Milestone

Until last Sunday, no pitcher had gained 10 victories this season. Then, in the span of five days, five pitchers reached that plateau with identical 10-2 records.

Tom Glavine of Atlanta got there first last Sunday just before Chuck Finley of California. Then they were joined by Ramon Martinez of Los Angeles Monday and Jimmy Key of Toronto and Scott Erickson of Minnesota Thursday. Big Blunder for Reds

Reggie Jefferson was the Cincinnati Reds' first baseman of the immediate and long-range future. The Reds thought so highly of him that they have had Jose Cardenal, a former major league outfielder, working with Hal Morris on his play in left field so he could move there from first. It is Jefferson, however, who has moved -- all the way to the Indians' organization.

The Reds reluctantly sent him there Friday, receiving another minor leaguer in return, rather than having to release him. They put themselves in that unwelcomed position by committing the type of blunder that forced the Pittsburgh Pirates to trade Wes Chamberlain, a high-level outfield prospect, to Philadelphia last August. Bob Quinn, meet Larry Doughty.

The Reds' problem began when Jefferson became ill with pneumonia. Because the Reds thought he would recover in less than two weeks and because they wanted to save money (it would have been a meager $1,950), General Manager Quinn decided not to put him on the 15-day disabled list. Instead, supposedly with input from the league office or the Player Relations Committee, Quinn designated him for assignment. That meant they had 10 days in which to assign his contract to another team, major or minor league, or release him.

They wanted to send him to the minors, but they discovered that attachment 11 of the collective-bargaining agreement does not permit such a move when a player is injured. And and it was clear that Jefferson would not be fit to play before the 10-day designated period expired.

Behind-the-scenes negotiations did not resolve the Reds' dilemma, and they were forced to make the trade on the last day of the 10-day period.

"Designated for assignment is not meant to be a roster-jockeying device," Eugene Orza, a union lawyer, said. "We don't want the clubs using it to jockey the roster around in lieu of placing players on the disabled list."

As soon as he is healthy, the run-starved Indians plan to put Jefferson on another list, their starting lineup.

Photo: The A's made Todd Burns their 11th pitcher Friday, removing him from the disabled list. (Associated Press)